In the retail industry, the largest expenditures are typically the cost of the goods sold followed closely by the cost of labor expended. With particular regard to the retail grocery or supermarket industry, the impetus to reduce labor costs has focused on reducing or eliminating the amount of time required to handle and/or process the items or goods to be purchased by a customer. To this end, there have been a number of self-service checkout terminal concepts developed which attempt to substantially eliminate the need for a checkout clerk.
A self-service checkout terminal is a system which is operated by a customer or user without the aid of a checkout clerk. In such a system, the customer scans individual items for purchase across a scanner and then places the scanned item into a grocery bag, if desired. The customer then pays for his or her purchase either at the self-service checkout terminal if so equipped, or at a central payment area which is staffed by a store employee. Thus, a self-service checkout terminal permits a customer to select, itemize, and in some cases pay for his or her purchase without the assistance of the retailer's personnel.
A customer typically has little or no training in the operation of a self-service checkout terminal prior to his or her initial use of the checkout terminal. One concern that retailers have when evaluating a self-service checkout terminal is the level of supervision provided to inexperienced customers. Moreover, it is also known that some customers may have improper intentions when using a self-service checkout terminal. In traditional checkout systems, the clerk employed by the retailer to operate the checkout terminal provides a level of security against theft or other improprieties. However, in the case of a self-service checkout terminal, the terminal itself must provide the necessary security.
Moreover, it is desirable to allow a customer to move or shuffle items which have previously been scanned or otherwise entered in the self-service checkout terminal so as to facilitate operation of the terminal. For example, after a customer scans a loaf of bread, it is desirable to allow the customer to place the bread on a post-scan shelf or the like until later in the transaction at a point in time at which the customer may place the bread in a nearly full grocery bag thereby preventing the bread from being crushed. However, one drawback associated with permitting the customer to perform such shuffling of entered items is that it becomes necessary for the security system of the self-service checkout terminal to differentiate between entered items and unentered items. In particular, it is desirable to provide a security system for the self-service checkout terminal that reduces the number of occasions in which a customer places an unscanned or otherwise unentered item into a grocery bag or a post-scan shelf.
What is needed therefore is a self-service checkout terminal which overcomes one or more of the above-mentioned drawbacks. What is also needed is a self-service checkout terminal which allows the shuffling of scanned or otherwise entered items in a post-scan area of the self-service checkout terminal, but reduces the number of occasions in which a customer places an unscanned or otherwise unentered item into a grocery bag or a post-scan shelf.